Fun party... who's the host?

Sarah Palin was the guest of honor at a Tea Party convention in Nashville this weekend. Six hundred people showed up, paying $500 a head to listen to Sarah America call for a new revolution here in the States.

Totally ignoring the legality or her call to arms, I think it's important to first address just what the Tea Party is, who's running it, and who it's aiming to help. According to the head of the Staten Island Tea Party, Lorraine Scanni, this rant from Rick Santelli on CNBC was the Party's genesis:



So nominally the Tea Party is for "smaller government" and eliminating "interference" in the lives of Joe six-pack.

But thus far, at least, people like Scanni are unable to elucidate the "how" of that. When asked by the always excellent Brian Lehrer why Santelli's rant was so inspiring, she wasn't able to give a coherent answer. When asked what role the government would play were the Tea Party to come to power - the caller who posed the question mentioned things like negotiation of overseas trading rights, interstate commerce, regulations on things like food and drugs - Scanni replied only "elimination of taxes and an increase national defense."

Those two things don't go together, for what it's worth. If you want a fleet of billion dollar, state of the art fighter jets, you have to pay for it somehow.

Asked about where the Tea Party stands on the health care debate, Scanni's response was "we want Tort Reform." Which is fine, since a lot of folks like the idea of Tort Reform... except that Tort Reform is just another kind of "big government" interference.

When asked about the bank bailout, which is the Tea Party's least favorite thing ever, both Scanni and fellow guest Glenn Reynolds said "too big to fail is too big to exist! The trusts need to be broken up." A sentiment I'm right on board with.

But... and this is the "but" I just can't wrap my head around... BUT strong governmental anti-trust legislation means bigger government. Means interference with the natural cycles of economics and commerce. Means everything the Tea Party is nominally against in their mission statement. They were against it before they were for it.

So, for the time being, it's hard to take the Tea Party at all seriously from an ideological standpoint. They just seem like a bunch of angry folks whose only shared value is that anger. Certainly, the fact that Palin's claim to fame is running the biggest welfare state in US history didn't bother them much, but the idea of trusts really gets them going. As does the idea of a government enacting regulations to break the trusts.

Ideologically they're pretty much play-dough, and in the next six months, people like Scanni and Reynolds will become marginalized and we'll start seeing new, polished leaders who come from the Karl Rove mold. The Tea Party's not a particularly big movement yet, but they have traction and generate headlines. Any half decent politician's eyes should light up at the reality of that, and any half decent politician will be able to shape the Tea Party's anger and focus it.

Against what, I don't know. Funny part is, neither are they.